CIA ON THE DOCK

A landmark Italian trial into the 2003 CIA abduction of Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Omar Nasr from Milan went ahead after the judge rejected a suspension request from Italy’s former top military spy. The request was presented by the defence team of Niccolo’ Pollari, the former head of Italian military intelligence SISMI, which is now known as AISE. However, Oscar Magi, the judge, ordered that 20 prosecution witnesses, mainly SISMI agents, should be heard behind closed doors. Earlier, arguing against the suspension request, Milan prosecutor Armando Spataro highlighted the importance of the trial, the keenly awaited first judicial examination of the controversial US practice of ‘extraordinary rendition’. The Council of Europe, Europe’s human rights body, has called Nasr’s case a ‘‘perfect example of rendition’’. Nine Italians including Pollari are on trial with 26 CIA agents for Nasr’s abduction. Prosecutors say he was snatched by a team of CIA operatives with SISMI’s help and whisked off to a NATO base in Ramstein, Germany, on board a Gulfstream jet belonging to the Boston Red Sox baseball team. From there, he was allegedly taken to Egypt to be interrogated under duress.